The Bergen County Prosecutor’s office is feeling the pinch of increased heroin use throughout suburban NJ, and they are pinching back.
While arrest records are public, and many local residents are familiar with police blotters in the weekly newspaper, it is still usually the dealer who’s arrest is noted in the press.
The prosecutor’s office in Bergen County is taking a different strategy, and has listed the names and addresses of alleged drug buyers arrested in Paterson – and those arrested are not from Paterson.
The names include those hailing from Franklin Lakes, Wyckoff, Ramsey, Allendale, and Mahwah just to name some. These are people who were arrested as part of a four month investigation into the distribution of Heroin in the Bergen, Passaic and Mercer County areas.
Local police in Oakland, Wyckoff and Franklin Lakes have made numerous heroin related arrests independent of the joint task force highlighted in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s press release. The majority of these arrests have been for possession, but suspected drug dealers have also been charged with distribution.
The new initiative by the BCPO is similar to strategies often implemented in neighborhoods where prostitution is a problem. While traditionally prostitutes were arrested and their customers disappeared into the night, more aggressive strategies involved the arrest and “shaming” of their clients.
The public posting of those arrested in Paterson drug neighborhoods provides a warning to potential drug tourists from the suburbs. This reduces the number of customers, and hopefully works towards making the Paterson neighborhood safer for residents.
No one expects the recent arrests of drug dealers and alleged buyers to make a significant dent, the posting of alleged buyers and their hometowns can help raise awareness that the heroin problem is serious, is growing, and reaches into every town.
Links:
http://www.northjersey.com/…_23_busted_in_heroin_ring.html
Bergen Record – Suburbia’s Deadly Secret
The Oakland Journal – Heroin Stamps
The Oakland Journal – Accidental Addict
Bergen Prosecutor Press Release:
During the early part of January 2013, members of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Narcotic Task Force met with Dr. Jennifer SCHWARTZ of the Bergen County Medical Examiner’s Office regarding her concern in an alarming spike of fatal Heroin overdose deaths for the past year (2012). Of the twenty-eight (28) confirmed Heroin/Opiate overdose deaths for 2012, twelve (12) of them occurred during a four month period between June and September. Detectives then conducted interviews of defendants, confidential informants, family members of Heroin addicts, as well as input from other law enforcement agencies, all of which has provided valuable insight into the current Heroin “culture.”
According to the aforementioned resources as well as the analysis of arrest data, detectives have determined that a majority of the Heroin being consumed by Bergen County residents is purchased in neighboring Passaic County, specifically from dealers operating on the streets of Paterson. In addition to the overdoses detailed above, detectives analyzed the monthly arrest reports of the Paterson Police Department which revealed that in 2011 and 2012, a large number of Bergen County residents were arrested in Paterson while purchasing Heroin.
This information corroborates the information gathered from various sources, that Paterson is Bergen County’s primary source for Heroin. Detectives then contacted their counterparts in the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office who, like Bergen County, were experiencing a similarly alarming spike in heroin and opiate overdoses in the surrounding towns of Passaic County. As a result, these two agencies, joined by many of the surrounding municipal law enforcement agencies, formed a multi-jurisdictional drug task force with the goal of targeting Heroin purchasers coming to Paterson from surrounding towns as well as the street dealers supplying the heroin….Click here for the entire press release